10 Recent Works of Gothic Horror to Read ASAP

Sisters Sheila and Angie spend their days taking care of their garden, their great-aunt, and the housework at their home in Appalachia while their mother works long hours at the asylum nearby. When two hikers are murdered on the Appalachian trail close to their home, the girls are drawn to the case. It’s an atmospheric book of thick woods and the danger that may lurk there.

After growing up in the mining town of Slater where a series of deaths plagued her, Isadora left and didn’t look back. But when her less-than-kind father dies, she’s forced to go back to get her inheritance. As soon as she’s back, though, an old friend comes to her with a theory that their friends were murdered by a supernatural entity and they need to be the ones to get rid of it. Now caught between wanting justice and wanting out, Isadora must decide if the town that she fled is worth putting her life on the line for.

I had to include a Frankenstein retelling, and this one that works in Indian mythology is excellent. With the help of an undead fluffy friend, Kajal tries to resurrect her sister before she’s gone forever. But her attempts cause her sister’s soul to become something more sinister, Kajal’s under the threat of imprisonment, and she’s quickly running out of time to save her beloved sibling.

A decade after she left her small North Carolina town, Mira receives a wedding invitation from an old friend whom she fell out of contact with. Curious at the chance to see her childhood friend again, Mira accepts despite her hesitation with the fact that the venue is a renovated plantation. Flashbacks to a traumatic night in her childhood and the history of the house collide, making her wish she had listened to her gut in the first place.

When Noemi gets word her newly-wed cousin is in trouble, she doesn’t hesitate to make the journey to High Place, where her cousin and new husband live. When she arrives, though, the danger doesn’t seem so clear. With family dynamics shifting and the house causing nightmares each night, Noemi starts poking into the house’s past where horrible secrets lie.

Jane has a proposal for Dr. Augustine Lawrence, but it’s not a romantic one. She needs a husband so she can keep doing her work without being shunned by society, and, in exchange, she will help with his accounting. His only protest? She must never step foot in his home, Lindridge Hall. But when a storm forces her on the steps of her husband’s house, he must relent and let her in. Soon, though, strange happenings and abounding secrets make Jane question how rational a decision this marriage was after all.

In Eden, Kentucky stands Starling House, a strange and some say haunted house owned once by a reclusive author who vanished. Opal, struggling to get her younger brother out of their less-than-ideal living situation, is offered a job at Starling House to tend to the estate. As she begins her new job, she meets the house’s heir Arthur Starling, and the pair clash as the house and its secrets come more and more into the light.

After Leah’s deep-sea mission runs nearly half a year longer than expected, her wife Miri is relieved to have her back. But Leah isn’t the same as she was. She spends hours in the bathroom running water and craves saltier and saltier drinks. And her body isn’t the same, either. With alternating perspectives, Miri and Leah recount their history, their present, and what they can do to stay together going forward.

After Beatriz’s disgraced general father is killed, she accepts the proposal of Don Rodolfo, ignoring the rumors about his first wife’s fate. Beatriz moves into San Isidro, excited at the prospect of her own place, but finds it less welcoming than she expected. Throwing herself into improving the place after Rodolfo reports to work in the capital, Beatriz starts to hear whispers and feel invisible eyes. With the help of a local priest, they do what they can to banish whatever evil presence lurks in Hacienda San Isidro.

After the loss of her grandfather and conflict with her family, Ursula travels to Argentina to get away. There, she’s soon offered a gardener position at an isolated estate called Las Lágrimas, and she accepts despite rumors that it’s haunted. Now with a fresh start, she’s determined to do a good job. But as strange occurrences happen around her, she wonders if she should have listened to the rumors after all.